


two rabbits runnin' (in the ditch)

by justcourbeau



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series), Watcher Entertainment RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Episode Related, Gen, If You Squint - Freeform, Pre-Relationship, Werewolf Shane Madej
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-29
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:01:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27780421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justcourbeau/pseuds/justcourbeau
Summary: It stares.Ryan still doesn’t know what to do, so he stares back.It’s got a long snout and astute eyes. Pointed ears. Paws that are almost comically large considering the slender build of its body.It’s massive, and if it wanted to kill him, he would have been dead on sight.Ryan stares.It stares.
Relationships: Ryan Bergara/Shane Madej
Comments: 11
Kudos: 112





	two rabbits runnin' (in the ditch)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sequence_fairy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sequence_fairy/gifts).



> If you are in the mood for some atmosphere, this may suffice. If you are looking for a plot, this is maybe not that. 
> 
> Anyway: it’s magic, your honour. 
> 
> Thank you to Jennie for the extra eyes.
> 
> For Jess, who is a goddamn delight.
> 
> Just in time for the full moon tonight. A reminder to always tell the moon she’s pretty.

_When I look over my shoulder_

_What do you think I see?_

_\- Season of the Witch by Donovan_

Ryan can get distracted, can retreat into his own head, and he knows it. He tries not to because, well, it annoys people, usually. So he fights it, reins it in like an unruly, childish impulse. 

Shane is somewhat the opposite; he never seems to get distracted, or sidetracked, or introspective with bad timing. Or, at least, in comparison to Ryan, he doesn’t. Ryan’s got the market cornered on awkward silences, too-focused stares, and chaotic, guerilla-style research wormholes. 

But Shane’s been…

Weird.

Weirder than usual. 

He might not be awkward in the same way Ryan is, but he is an odd dude, regardless. It’s usually in the movement of his limbs, or the way he phrases something that makes him sound out-of-time, like he just stepped out of the past. It’s not usually in… whatever is happening with him in the passenger seat.

“Hey man,” Ryan intones, and Shane shifts his focus from his phone screen to the driver’s seat. “I know you didn’t, like, want to be here—”

“That’s not—Ryan, I—” Shane’s eyes widen.

“I’m sorry we couldn’t change the shoot date, man,” Ryan presses, looking back to the road, unable (or unwilling) to watch any flashes of guilt play over Shane’s face. 

“That’s _really_ not…” Shane trails off, and Ryan leaves it hanging. “I know this is kind of a once a year shot we have here, so it’s okay. I just…”

“I know.” Ryan nods once, slowly, still not looking over at him.

It’s just them, their bags in the back, and the lulling sound of wheels racing over the road beneath the car. The crew and gear is in the van behind them, and Ryan flicks his eyes yet again to the rear-view mirror. TJ’s still got his hilariously large toque on his head, despite what Ryan is sure is a cranked and blowing heat. Devon, in the passenger seat, is only visible by the bun perched on top of her head and the soles of her shoes propped on the dashboard as she reclines as far back as Mark will let her.

“It’ll be okay, big guy. I promise,” Ryan breaks the silence again, looking over to give Shane a resolve-affirming nod.

“Yeah,” Shane responds, but it comes out a little bit strained, and Ryan grimaces.

.

.

.

The thing is, Sara’s getting married—

To someone who isn’t Shane. 

He hasn’t been a contender for that position for almost two years now, and it doesn't really bother him as much as Ryan seems to think it does, but it’s a lie that serves Shane very well, so he… well, he doesn’t lean into it, but he doesn’t lean away from it either. It’s convenient. 

It all starts five weeks before the shoot when Shane asks if they can change the date of the Eastwood Farm location, heart pounding heavy in his chest after a quick glance at the calendar pinned to their bulletin board, and Ryan gives him a soft, pained look.

“Bad timing,” Ryan nods, and Shane just about keels over. Does Ryan _know—_

“Do you think you’ll be okay?” Devon asks, looking up from her position behind a lightstand she’s fighting with.

Does _Devon_ know, too?!

“I got an invitation, too, and I…” Ryan trails off, scratching the bridge of his nose, and _thank god,_ oh shit, Shane had thought for a second they knew the real reason why he was suddenly panicked about a shoot _five_ weeks away. Distinctly un-Shane-like.

“I mean, I said I couldn’t, because of Unsolved,” Shane supplies with a shrug, willing his heart to settle back into something resembling a normal beat. “So it actually worked out okay.”

“Right,” Ryan nods. “Better to keep yourself busy, maybe, anyway?”

It’ll be late October in the midwest. There’ll be cloud cover. It’ll be fine.

And that’s how Shane finds himself checking The Weather Network App every 7 minutes, silently praying in increasingly frantic bouts that the wind doesn’t pick up much more than it already has, or there will be no clouds to hide under. 

.

.

.

Confusion is really the dominant feeling Ryan’s dealing with, and he shoots another look over at Shane as the rural road curves gently to the left. The lights of the van behind them sweep out to their right, illuminating the almost-darkness of the gravel along the shoulder, the pale shapes of overgrown wild grass flashing by, disappearing as quickly as they appear. 

Ryan had thought, maybe, that Shane’s desire to reschedule had come from a position of not wanting to be around people as Sara got hitched, even at 1,000 miles away, because being around people, being around the crew and having to pretend to be okay, might be too much for him.

But Shane’s been obsessive about watching the precipitation tracker for the area around the farm, even has the little nearby town as one of his saved locations for easy access, and Ryan’s having a hard time linking that particular mania to Sara. 

Shane’s very much a roll-with-the-punches sort of guy; that one time they had found themselves in the middle of a downpour in Mexico City, he’d just laughed and done a funny jig, splashing into a puddle letting the rainwater darken his shirt and drip down the back of his neck as Ryan had spazzed and flailed around for his coat. That was one of the first things they ever did together on Unsolved, and it had certainly set the tone for every adventure to follow. 

Even terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad airport hotdogs hadn’t done Shane in at the end of the day, and yet here the sasquatch is, stressing over the weather forecast for middle-of-nowhere Iowa when they aren’t even going to be outside for more than five minutes of filming. 

.

.

.

Shane can feel it thrumming under his skin, like a ripple effect, raising all the hairs on his body up in one painfully prickly cascade. He knew—he _knew_ it would come to this. How could he have not come up with a fucking excuse? Because now it has to happen, whether he likes it or not, and he’s got a snowball’s chance in hell at pulling this off without Ryan noticing that something is seriously off, more than he already has. 

Flashes of the looks Ryan’s been giving him pop back up, flitting by in a tangled mess of curiosity, concern, and pity. 

If Shane had just _made up a better excuse,_ they wouldn’t be here. Feigned sickness, faked a broken bone, improvised a goddamn concussion— _anything_. Anything to get him out of being in this farmhouse in the middle of nowhere with nothing but a few static cams, two handhelds, some body cams, and Ryan.

_Ryan._

Shane stills the train wreck happening inside his brain, brushing away the insistent goosebumps on his forearms. The house around them is silent but for the occasional creak of old wood, and a faint shuffling noise that indicates that Ryan is still awake and moving around. Shane sincerely hopes that Ryan won’t hear any infinitesimally small or made up noises, and that he falls asleep quickly.

Shane can only hold this off for so long.

.

.

.

There’s a knock at the door, a quick little pattern of raps that Ryan would recognize anywhere.

“Yeah?” he calls out.

The door edges open, and Shane pokes his head in.

“I just double-checked all the batteries, and made sure the doors were locked, etcetera. Try not to let your imagination run away with you too hard tonight, Bergara.”

For the first time all day, Shane gives him a smile that feels honest, if a little tired, and then he’s gone again.

As Shane leaves and shuts the door tightly behind him, Ryan resists the urge to burrow down and immediately pull the top edge of the sleeping bag tight around him and up under his chin. Shane’s right—nothing about this location has screamed haunted. It’s remote and quiet and old, and the grounds sweep out vastly into open fields aside from the clump of trees at the far end of the driveway that leads to a sizable-looking section of wooded area, but none of their wandering has produced any feelings of being watched. No weirdly-timed breezes, no ghostly touches, no unexplained bangs, scratches, or thumps.

It hasn’t been without its challenges, though. 

Ryan’s never seen Shane this tense before. 

Well, except that one time when they were in Mexico, right at the beginning, and there had been that one tiny scare where they hadn’t been sure if they were going to make it off the island of the dolls because the guy who took them over there on his boat tried to hustle them for more money in order for them to get back to the mainland.

But even then, the tight line of Shane’s shoulders hadn’t been quite so sharp. Today, even under all the cold weather layering, Ryan had been sorely tempted to reach up and clasp his shoulder, if for nothing else but to remind him to drop the tension.

Ryan… doesn’t know what to say. He really doesn’t know how to console Shane or help him through this. Ryan’s own long term relationship broke apart, but Helen didn’t go on to meet someone new right away, didn’t get engaged within the year, didn’t move to a different state and get hitched. He’s severely out of his element here thanks to the lack of experience and his ever-stubborn no-homo fall back instincts. 

Ryan turns over in his sleeping bag, eyeing the strip of dark night sky peeking at him from behind the dusty lace curtains. There’s a long rectangular patch of moonlight shining down and hitting the wood floor to his left, and he belatedly reaches out for it. He watches the gentle, slow dance of his shadow fingers as he twists his wrist, the light catching against all the moving edges of him.

The farmhouse is silent around him.

They’ve never been quite this rural before. Even when Unsolved ends up taking them out of a major city, their destinations are usually within ten minutes of a town, at least. 

Eastwood Farm is 6 hours outside Minneapolis.

(Travel time actually would have been a lot shorter if they had flown into Winnipeg and driven down over the border, but international travel is more expensive, and Devon is trying to make every dollar stretch as far as she can.)

Anyway, they’ve never been this far from a major city, Ryan thinks, and maybe he ought to be taking advantage of that. Shane is always going on about the merits of fresh air.

Ryan contemplates it for a moment. It’s cold outside. 

_Fuck it._

He doesn’t feel close to sleep yet, and there’s a whole whack of unexplored farmland stretching almost as far as the eye can see out there. He didn’t feel spooked once earlier. 

He _should_ do this.

Maybe the quiet would give him some advice for helping Shane.

.

.

.

Each minute that passes means a little more pressure for Shane to deal with.

His skin itches. 

His joints grind.

His head feels like he’s balancing an anvil, the pressure behind his eyes building up to a point where he has to make a move. 

Shane waits for any faint noises coming from Ryan’s room to fall silent and then starts counting to ten minutes. Nothing makes a noise in that time, thankfully. 

He very carefully steps around the old wide plank flooring, shrugging on his fleece and tugging on his boots, leaving the laces untied but tucked into the ankle. He leaves his phone and wallet and anything else important; he won’t need them.

Making his way down the upper hallway and creeping down the stairs without stepping onto any of the old creaky parts takes longer than Shane hopes it will, but he forces himself to pause, to take it slow. Because everything— _everything_ —rides on him being able to get out of the house undetected. Anything else, any other problems or questions, can be dealt with in the morning, can be placated with white lies. 

But if anything gets in between him and the forest’s edge right now, Shane knows how big of a challenge it will be to keep all of him under control.

.

.

.

The sun set hours ago, but Shane has no trouble making his way through the underbrush, no flashlight needed. In contrast to the silence of the house, the woods have the potential for a lot more noise. Shane moves quickly, glancing back occasionally to see if he can still spot the farmhouse through the bare branches. If he can see it, he’s still too close. If he can’t see it, he should still walk for a few more minutes, just in case. 

He makes his way down a gentle valley, stepping over the low lying area and hopping from rock to rock across a slow-moving stream, and all the while, the itching along his spine is threatening to drive him insane. Once he pushes on and follows a curve in the landscape, Shane looks around sharply to find some sort of landmark to orient himself to, and spots a tall, tall tree with an oddly pointy rock about ten paces to the side. He takes a second, swings his head around to make sure there’s nothing staring at him from the shadows and that he knows where he is, before he grits his teeth and starts stripping. 

He would say that the getting naked in the middle of a cold snap part of this was the worst, but that would be a blatant lie. 

Shane stashes his clothes and doesn’t bother covering them up. There’s no one else out here to make off with them, and he learned a long time ago that, even though getting bare assed in the forest was not his favourite activity, replacing all his clothes to cushion that inconvenience was far more of a sting (to his wallet) than the cold, pre-winter weather. 

Another breeze kicks up, sending a shiver up Shane’s spine. It could be because he runs hot, but it could also be because the moon is shining down on his bare skin, the light falling over his shoulders and draping along the length of his limbs as if it’s a landsick sailor returning from sea. 

He finds a spot, makes sure there’s no sharp rocks sticking out of the ground, kicks through a gusted pile of autumn-coloured leaves to be sure, and then takes a few slow, centreing breaths. 

The itch along his spine, the one scratching never seems to help around the full moon, becomes unbearable, and it makes Shane want to peel his skin off. 

No time like the present.

He looks up, gaze falling on the stark outline of the bright celestial body.

.

.

.

Shane’s door is shut tightly as Ryan shuffles by, half hoping that the big guy will hear him and come looking, maybe join him on the front step. Even if he’s not talkative, even if Ryan still doesn’t know what to say, even if nothing is mended before this trip is over, and everything is still raw. 

But he won’t, because Shane is undoubtedly already dead asleep, just like every other time they stay on location. 

Ryan pads down the stairs, careful not to slip on the smooth, worn steps in his wooliest pair of socks, ghoul boots in hand. He casts his gaze over the downstairs level; it’s quiet, and the moon is shining in through the kitchen windows just like it is upstairs into his room. There’s an antique dining table off to his right, no chairs left around it, and built in bench seating in the kitchen. The wood stove there is ancient and blackened, but just the sight of it makes Ryan wish they could light a fire and spark some warmth.

The layout is pretty nice, not really open plan but lots of space to make up for it. In the daylight, cleaned up and staged, it could totally pass for a normal, buyable house, one that didn’t necessarily have the murder-filled history this one did.

Ryan laces up his shoes, zips up his coat, and steps out onto the wide, wraparound veranda. 

The cold is sharp in his lungs, and he digs his fingers into the pockets of his jeans, searching out any lasting heat. 

The moon is off to the left and so bright. It doesn’t matter that there’s no motion light and no bulb in the socket over the doorway. The silver gleam ripples out over the gentle swells of the pastures surrounding the house, bounces off every swaying leaf on the trees in the distance. 

Ryan sidles right over to the nearest bannister, strong and in no danger of breaking, and leans his hip against it. From here on the edge of the deck, he can see the wide, infinitely dark sky without craning his neck. He looks north, away from the moon, and searches.

There’s almost no light pollution out here to speak of; the black of space is _black,_ which makes the stars stand out starkly, plain as day. They’re hard to spot in LA—fuzzy, pale, or just plain invisible with the light of the city getting in the way, one giant gradient that never seems to go totally black. 

Ryan leans forward, setting both elbows down on the wood and bending forward. 

The emptiness here feels _empty_ in a way that Los Angeles could never, and it’s refreshing. 

The sound that explodes into the night is like shrapnel, sharp, tearing into the night like a dagger through shimmering chiffon, leaving torn and jagged edges in its wake. 

Ryan jerks at the noise: loud and round in a way that shouldn’t make the hair on his arms stand up, but it does anyway. 

It stays true for a few long moments before petering off.

A scream. 

.

.

.

Shane tries, he tries _so_ hard, to keep the noise insulated in his lungs, safe, trapped, contained. 

Secret.

But he should have expected that wouldn’t work, that that particular plan was bound to fail.

It tears out of him, but by then he can hardly hear it anyway, and he’s lost to the haze of the shift.

.

.

.

Ryan’s always trying to scare himself, trying to force his body into fight or flight by putting himself into situations where he’s freaked out, where it’s easy to spook yourself. Sometimes he thinks it’s so he can prove, over and over again, that he can do it—he has the strength to stay in place even when everything around him is making him want to bail and sprint to safety (even if it’s the stupid belief in the supernatural that gets him into this mess).

That takes a lot of mental strength.

Right now, though, right now Ryan couldn’t move even if he wanted to.

His body is frozen and lead heavy, stuck in place and straining to listen closely for any follow up sound. 

When it comes, just a second later, he’s still not quite ready for it. He gives a secondary jerk and takes one sharp step backwards. 

Maybe it’s because it’s been eerily silent since he and Shane had said goodnight, maybe it’s because he’s standing in this great wide open space unprotected, but it’s _loud._ Loud and… strange. It’s rough, ripping through the night, and pained. It’s broad and howling, carrying across the shimmering grass, just as often as it slips into something ragged, stilted, torn, as if ripped from a throat that was desperately trying to keep it shut in. 

It goes on forever, and Ryan stands frozen, blood pumping hotly, ears burning. It goes and goes and goes until suddenly, it doesn’t. 

The second silence is even more eerie. 

There’s white noise in his ears.

There’s also no way Shane slept through that.

Ryan dashes back into the house and runs up the stairs, so sure that Shane will be up, rubbing his eyes and looking out his window that Ryan doesn’t bother keeping it down as his feet thud heavily. He bounds around the upstairs bannister and pushes his way into the room opposite his own.

It’s empty.

.

.

.

The smell is different. It smells more like home than the city, something he hasn’t smelled in so long. 

The air is cold, but he’s protected now, and the open wildness of everything jumps and races in his veins, hot and untamable. His coat trembles, but not from the chill; it’s a resonating, yearning, insidious beckoning.

The forest is expansive, and Shane wants to _run._

.

.

.

Ryan’s brain stalls, tries to find traction, and stalls some more as he stumbles his way back down the big staircase and out into the wide, dark night. 

He can’t really make any sense of it.

Shane is gone. There’s someone—or some _thing_ —in the woods, screaming. Shane is gone. 

Ryan casts around wildly, looking for anything out of place, a hint, a sign, a blinking neon pointer, but there’s nothing. The fields look the same as they did earlier, far-reaching, edged with trees, the sound of the wind in the leaves drifting in waves over to him, only audible when he stops panting for breath. 

The moon is still bright above him, and Ryan sends up a brief thank you as he again looks around for a sign of whatever could have possibly made that noise. 

Ryan’s hair stands on end, and he brushes his palms vaguely down his arms, trying to soothe the goosebumps under his clothing to no avail.

There’s nothing obvious for him to spot, he determines, after retracing his eyes around the perimeter of the field. 

Nothing to spot, but maybe something for him to hear. 

.

.

.

A sinewy strength stretches along his limbs, responds in time to propel him forward at a speed he can never reach at any other time of the lunar cycle. 

He’s been in the city too long, an absurdly long time, and why does he do that to himself? Why does he deny himself the sheer joy of racing the wind through the trees, of chasing the rabbits and the foxes and leaping at the owls? 

He ducks his head down and powers forward, giant paws stretching forward in a reliable thump-thump, claws tearing at the earth, digging and propelling and he’s free, finally. 

.

.

.

Ryan stands stock still, frozen as the starlight above him.

No sign comes, but he picks a direction and pulls his coat closer around himself to muffle the chill. 

.

.

.

As he reaches the crest of a hill, heaving giant lungs inside his chest, he catches a familiar scent and looks to the sky, opening his jaws once more.

.

.

.

There’s a lot of underbrush, but Ryan’s ghoul boots are sturdy. 

He treks and treks, crosses a stream, follows a sloping bend, and stops.

The forest is silent around him, and then—

The air is rent again, a horrible howling echoing in his ear, the ringing obscuring Ryan’s sense of surroundings.

He’s not sure what he expects, but it’s not what he finds. 

.

.

.

He watches the little moving figure pick its way through the trees, feet loud and obtrusive in the silence of the night. 

The dirt between his claws is welcoming.

He waits. 

.

.

.

The back of Ryan’s neck prickles.

He stops.

His heart is racing, detracting from his ability to hear over the rush of blood in his ears. 

“Shane?” he hisses into the still night, trees and shadows and rocks and the distant trickle of the stream a while back the only answer he gets. 

Ryan follows the curve of the incline, keeping it close on his left. When he glances up, he comes to a stumbling stop, catching himself on a nearby outcropping of rock, the edge of which slices into his palm. The pain makes him glance down momentarily, and when he finds his footing again, he snaps his gaze back up to the crest of the hill. 

Silent and imposing, still as a statue, is the largest animal Ryan has ever seen in his life. 

The moon barely catches its edges, hardly illuminates the contours of its body, and Ryan squints, breathing quickly. 

Just like before, every instinct in his body is screaming at him to run, hard and fast, to slam into the old farmhouse and barricade himself inside, hope that he has reception, call for help. 

It’s hard to tell with all the shadows and lack of clarity, but the animal looks to be at least twice or three times his size, and running would likely be a bad move. Anything that large is bound to be an apex predator, and giving chase seemed like maybe the worst idea his panicked brain could come up with. 

So Ryan stays frozen, keeps his eyes on it, and focuses on slowing his breathing and willing his hand to stop dripping blood. 

It doesn’t move. 

If it weren’t for its hot breath pluming in the dark cold, stark against the blackness of space behind it, Ryan might actually believe that it’s a statue.

But almost as if it can hear Ryan’s thoughts, it starts to shift. 

A gentle shuffle, a scattering of dry leaves, and it’s slinking down the hill toward him, picking its way around clusters of trees and rocks. 

Internally, Ryan is a panicked amalgamation of misguided human instinct as he watches the creature wend its way down to his level. When it gets about 20 feet away, it stops in a clear area, letting the light of the moon play over its features, and plunks itself down. 

Ryan breathes. 

It’s a wolf, but a wolf like he’s never seen before. 

In fact, it’s the size of a _giant_ wolf, but it looks more like a coyote; a more slender body, gangly limbs, coat not as fluffy, pointier attributes. Tawny fur, too-long legs folded up, intent gaze. 

The breeze picks up, ruffling Ryan’s hair, and to his horror—amazement?—the wolf raises its snout a fraction, sniffing at the air like it just got a faint whiff of something delicious.

Ryan keeps his eyes on it, and it isn’t until it shuffles again, disturbing the frozen quiet, that he feels the chill of the air again, feels the bite of it at his exposed knuckles and cheeks. Once he notices it, the shaking starts, no matter how hard he wills himself to keep still. 

The wolf stands again and starts moving not towards him, but to the side, eyes still locked on his. It takes a minute, two even, but soon it’s circled him, come a little closer, and it keeps going. Ryan realizes with a jolt that it’s _circling_ circling him, herding him, hunting him, and a strangled noise escapes his throat. 

Its path creeps closer and closer, ever circling, until Ryan can see its massive paws in the underbrush, can hear it breathing, until its rangy coat brushes against the puff of his jacket with a shattering _shhhhhhht_ sound. Ryan fights the urge to jump out of his skin. 

Stopping in front of him, it sits down again, and Ryan has a chance to more accurately judge its size. It’s taller than him. Huge. And close enough now that Ryan can feel each huffed exhale of breath on his own face and neck. 

It stares. 

Ryan still doesn’t know what to do, so he stares back.

It’s got a long snout and astute eyes. Pointed ears. Paws that are almost comically large considering the slender build of its body. 

It’s massive, and if it wanted to kill him, he would have been dead on sight. 

Ryan stares.

It stares. 

And Ryan feels a niggling in the back of his mind, the beginnings of a realization, and he wants to reach out and grab it. It slinks out of reach, but Ryan tilts his head. 

Shane is nowhere to be found, but there’s a gargantuan wolf in front of him, one that by all rights should have tackled and devoured him by now, leaving nothing but the smear of entrails on wind-scattered leaves. 

And yet…

Ryan looks closer. 

It’s hard to tell in the pale moonlight, but the wolf’s fur is more golden tawny than brown, and the shape of its brow is oddly familiar. It gives a twitch, as if amused, and Ryan sucks in a breath. 

It’s a bad idea to reach out and touch this beast, but, well—

So Ryan does, fingers twitching and hand slow, elbow extending. Ryan’s fingertips get closer and closer to its ear.

“Don’t bite my hand off. Good doggy,” Ryan breathes. His fingertips just barely skim the ends of the creature’s fur when it gives a quick, nuanced _bow-wooow._ It’s almost like a laugh. 

Ryan’s breath leaves him completely when the creature pushes into the palm of his hand, enthusiastic enough for Ryan to know it’s not a mistake. When he goes to pull away, almost frozen with awe and bone-deep cold, the snout follows and urges him back for more. 

There’s no fucking way.

There’s no fucking way this is Shane. 

But…

Ryan is overtaken by a full-body shiver, and the wolf’s eyes go from half-closed in pleasure to shrewd and observant, letting Ryan’s hand fall away with no protest this time. 

It gives him another long, piercing look, yips happily— _yips happily?_ —before turning tail, leaving Ryan standing, awkward and frozen. As if he’s experiencing lag, Ryan watches the wolf saunter away, tail swishing in the way he’s seen on big domestic dogs before. 

It yips again, clear and cutting and pointed, jolting Ryan into following it. He’s so cold, he’s numb, and he wishes desperately to wake up from this dream, warm and happy and content in the house, a room and a hallway away from Shane. 

The wolf is lithe, rustling a few leaves with the brush of its paws as it goes, but Ryan follows with the stealth of a bulldozer, unable to keep his limbs in check. The wolf keeps pausing and half-turning to check on Ryan, and when he trips for the fourth time and catches himself on the rough bark of a nearby tree, it fully stops and waits for him to catch up. 

It fixes those mesmerizing eyes on him again as he draws near, and the toe of Ryan’s boot catches another root under the crunchy brown leaf coating of the forest floor. With an _oomph,_ Ryan stumbles into the wolf’s chest, but the impact barely shakes it. It huffs, breath clouding the air for a split second as Ryan puts himself right again. 

Ryan jerks back as the wolf presses its cold, wet nose to the underside of his jaw, nudging up, but the reaction doesn’t faze it. It repeats the move, nudging and nudging, down his arm, under his elbow, lifting and nudging until Ryan’s palm is on its snout. 

Ryan can’t feel it. 

The wolf tips its head back, moving so Ryan’s hand rests on its shoulder, and stops again to look at Ryan expectantly. 

It’s so quiet that if the moon made a noise, Ryan’s sure they would be able to pick it up. 

He’s not really sure what to do, so he digs his fingers into the thick fur and tentatively grips. The pelt seems to ripple smoothly from head to tail of the wolf, and Ryan’s not sure if he’s surprised by anything anymore. The wolf shifts, giving Ryan somewhat of a warning before setting off again, much slower than before. Ryan keeps his grip tight, hanging on, and though he can’t really feel much from the cold, it keeps him steady and stops him from stumbling all over the place in the dark. 

Back around the incline, past the trees he remembers, and Ryan realizes that the wolf is taking him back to the farmhouse. 

Like it knows. 

Soon, they’re at the tree line, white veranda in sight, and Ryan longs for the heat inside, or if not heat, the shelter, at least. 

They make it across the open field pretty quickly, and the wolf doesn’t falter on the front steps, only pausing to nudge Ryan to open the door. Once inside, they both lean on it to close it shut.

There’s a giant, brown speckled wolf sitting on its haunches in the front hall of a farmhouse Ryan’s supposed to be investigating for ghostly activities, Shane can’t be found, and there’s cameras recording every second of this bizarre night. They’re on camera right this second, and vaguely, Ryan thinks at least they’ll find out what happened to him if he’s nowhere to be found in the morning when the crew comes to get him and Shane.

Shane.

Ryan looks again at the wolf, hard, questioning, and the wolf lets him for a moment, almost expectant. 

The quiet of the house is different from the quiet of outside, and very soon, Ryan feels the ambient heat start to seep back into his skin. He needs to find his sleeping bag immediately.

As if reading his mind, the wolf turns and starts up the wide staircase for the second floor, and Ryan has no other desire than to follow it. The wolf takes a right at the top and heads for Ryan’s room, Ryan on its heels, trying to get his coat zip down with thawing, burning fingers. By the time he’s able to drop the puffy coat, shed all his other outer gear, and kick off his ghoul boots, the wolf has arranged itself on the floor right next to the sleeping bag, curled slightly around it, like a crescent moon. 

Ryan stops.

The wolf raises its head, regards him with a slow blink, and sets it down again.

Ryan takes the hint.

.

.

.

The light of morning comes sooner than expected, and Ryan blinks awake.

With a jolt, he remembers the night before, snapping his head around to look for the giant, furry wolf that had accompanied him to bed in the wee hours of the morning. 

There’s no one with him in the room.

Ryan assesses the situation.

All his cold weather clothes are strewn haphazardly on the floor close to the door, right where he remembers flinging them before diving into the sleeping bag and being warmed by…

There’s footsteps outside, and a second later, two sharp raps at the door. Shane pokes his head in.

“Mornin’, sunshine,” he starts, uncharacteristically timid. There’s a pause before he continues. “The crew is packing up downstairs.”

Ryan stares. 

Shane blinks. 

Ryan takes a breath. “Weird night, last night, huh?”

Shane glances behind himself, and then steps fully into the room, nudging the door closed with a soft click. 

“Know what I mean?” Ryan presses. Shane takes a slow breath, but still says nothing. Ryan lets it float, getting up off the floor and pulling the curtains open. The early morning glow of the sun is just starting to seep into the sky, and Ryan isn’t sure how the rest of this conversation is going to go. 

Shane being a werewolf is impossible, and yet…

The question is, will Shane admit it?

Ryan’s betting that if he does, it won’t be in so many words. This is _Shane,_ after all. 

“I turned all the _compromised_ cameras off last night, so… There won’t be weird questions to answer,” is what Shane settles on. 

Ryan doesn’t comment; he just leans on the window sill, gazing out at the pale browns and murky greens coming to life outside. Shane eventually crosses to him, and mirrors his stance. Ryan looks for the bright round orb that had illuminated his nighttime adventure, but of course, she’s tucked away under the horizon. Shane mimics that too, the tiniest of quirks on his lips.

“Nothing to howl at this morning,” Ryan goads innocently, and Shane barks out a laugh, breaking the delicate and unfamiliar balance of uncertainty between them. Silence falls after, and Shane lets it stretch out before turning to Ryan, leaning in close. 

“A boy can dream. Bow-wooooow,” he whispers, lifting his chin and sending Ryan into laughter again. 

Relief floods his system. There’s still plenty of questions he has that will need answers eventually, but for now—

“Let’s pack up so we can get breakfast. You must be _starving._ ”

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading, please toss a comment to your writer.


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